Chinese horseshoe bats carry two newly identified viruses that are closely related to the coronavirus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, in people. The discovery, reported October 30 in Nature, provides the strongest evidence to date that SARS may have originated in bats.

The spread of SARS in 2002–2003 caused a pandemic that sickened more than 8,000 people and killed 774 worldwide. Scientists have identified several SARS-like coronaviruses in bats in China, Europe and Afr...